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Re: CF Lighting Recommendations Needed



This is a follow-up of my older post at 

http://www.actwin.com/fish/aquatic-plants/month.9903/msg00462.html

In that article I show a quantitative comparison of fluorescent bulbs with
emphasis on plant use. Since them I augmented the database with the
inclusion of more bulb data, including one power compact fluorescent 
(Osram/Sylvania Dulux 5400K) and one metal halide (Iwasaki 6500K). 

Here is the new complete table, arranged in decreasing order of PAR
output. See the former article for explanations.


Bulb        Power   Max.   Rated   Effic.  PAR          MPAR         R/B
             (W)   lumens  lumens                 total  blue  red

                                              (1.E15 phot./sec)

Iwasaki65    175   45000  12000    0.27   123.     60.9  26.1  20.4  0.78
Dulux540      55   16000   4800    0.30    42.9    21.1  11.8   5.7  0.48
AX50          40   12000   3600    0.30    31.6    15.5   7.7   5.2  0.68
Triton        40    8000   2200    0.28    27.3    16.4  10.9   3.5  0.32
SP65          40   11700   3050    0.26    26.4    13.5   6.9   3.7  0.53
PowerGlo      40    8500   2200    0.26    25.7    15.8   9.3   3.5  0.37
Daylight Dlx. 40   10400   2550    0.25    25.5    13.2   6.3   4.0  0.64
C50           40    9900   2250    0.23    24.7    12.1   4.1   5.4  1.30
SunGlo        40   13400   3100    0.23    23.9    11.3   5.0   2.8  0.57
Perfecto      40    7300   1600    0.22    23.4    14.4   5.1   7.5  1.47
P&A           40    9200   1900    0.21    23.4    11.1   2.3   6.7  2.88
Osram Biolux  40   10800   2400    0.22    22.5    12.2   5.5   3.1  0.53
GroLux        40    5900   1200    0.20    22.3    14.0   4.2   8.6  2.05
AquaGlo       40    4800    960    0.20    21.4    15.0   5.6   8.4  1.49
FloraGlo      40   12500   2180    0.17    19.2     8.8   1.4   5.1  3.57
TL950         32   12500   2000    0.16    13.4     5.5   1.3   1.5  1.17
Ott CF        23    5400   1200    0.22    12.9     7.6   3.9   2.4  0.62

(Thanks to Roger Miller for identifying an error in the conversion to
photons/sec, and for providing a nice photopic curve and software)

For the two bulbs of interest:

                  Lumens/watt    PAR/watt    MPAR/watt

Iwasaki 6500          69          0.70         0.35
Dulux 5400            87          0.78         0.38


The lumens/watt and MPAR/watt measures are sensitive to the particular
spectral distribution created by each bulb, but the PAR/watt is not.
The evidence suggests that CFs can have the same efficiency, or even
be slightly more efficient than MHs, although this can only be said for 
sure for the two bulbs analyzed here. The Iwasaki spectrum looks better,
from a plant viewpoint, than the Dulux's triphospor spectrum, though. 

-Ivo Busko
 Baltimore, MD